


A Birthday Tradition

by Daleth



Category: League of Legends
Genre: F/M, Fluff, Slice of Life
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-09-05
Updated: 2016-09-05
Packaged: 2018-08-13 06:48:53
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,604
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7966678
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Daleth/pseuds/Daleth
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The Piltover gang gets together to celebrate the sheriff's birthday, and a bit of wackiness ensues.</p>
            </blockquote>





	A Birthday Tradition

No matter how much time he spent outside of the city, and no matter how exciting his next discovery was going to be, there were four events that Ezreal would never miss in his home city of Piltover. The Harrowing Festival, The Week of Snowdown, The Annual Parade of Innovation, and the Sheriff’s birthday. His other friends never really needed him around to celebrate their birthdays. Vi couldn’t stand crowds for any longer than absolutely necessary. Jayce threw parties too big for him to notice whether or not Ezreal even shows up. The yordles stayed mostly to themselves, with ceremonies and traditions that they’d rather not share with the humans of Piltover. Ezreal himself didn’t really see the point in taking a break from his job for his own little party. But every year, The Prodigal Explorer, The Defender of Tomorrow, and The Enforcer took a day off from their busy lives to show appreciation for the woman who kept them all in check. 

Since Caitlyn would always spend her official birthday with her parents, and the group of four’s schedules were always crazy, the actual day that they got together was different every year. Always in the same month, though. It was important to Caitlyn. Ezreal had taken over the duties of arranging the affair, and corralling the other three. As this small group were all celebrities in their city state, they were generally unable to go out anywhere in public for Caitlyn’s small party. As such, Jayce usually had to host it in one of his summer homes, towards the outskirts of the city limits. A small lakeside cabin, quiet and secluded. This year, Ezreal had managed to find a free spot in the schedules at the beginning of the month, on a Saturday, and arranged the get together a week in advance. As always, the explorer was the first to arrive at the small three-room shack that was normally reserved for Jayce’s latest flame. He liked to get there early in the morning, to make sure that there everything was clean and ready for the occasion. The entrance room, decorated sparsely, met him as it always did. A light blue chaise lounge in the back of the room, beneath a window. Two dark red chairs in front of the fireplace, where an oil painting of Jayce that the inventor had commissioned himself hung above the mantle. A closed door to the left, leading to a decently sized kitchen, good enough for Jayce and whatever guest he had over at the time. Another on the right, to a small bedroom, which he knew to have another door leading to a bathroom with a modest shower. Ezreal sat a small box, wrapped carefully in plain green wrapping paper, on a simple wooden table by the entrance door. 

As he turned away from the table, he heard the faint sound of whistling coming from behind the closed door of the kitchen. He made his way over to the door, and found a shirtless Jayce on the other side, preparing pancakes on top of the stove. The self proclaimed defender of Piltover began to turn at the sound of the door, and spoke as he did so. “Oh good morning gorgeous, I didn’t expect you to be awake so ear-....” His sentence was cut short as his eyes made contact with Ezreal, who was just staring in a mix of disbelief and disappointment. The explorer let out a long sigh, before asking, “Hey Jayce?”

“....What are you doing here, Ez?”

“You know that thing we do every year for the sheriff? Because it’s her birthday? And we love her?”

“But it’s Saturday.”

“Yes Jayce. The day that we all agreed to BE HERE.”

The inventor turned back to the stove, and flipped a half-done pancake over as he continued to talk. “So…. it’s not scheduled for tomorrow then.”

Ezreal just pinched the bridge of his nose with his right hand, and shook his head. “Jayce. Jayce. ...Jayce. Vi and Cait are gonna be here in like an hour. I told them, and YOU AGREED TO IT, that we’d just do a lunch this year. So those pancakes BETTER be for us, or I swear to the void-”

Jayce just calmly transitioned the pancake he had finished cooking to a stack now half a dozen high. “Yeah, yeah. Just let me break it to her gently, alright? This girl’s really great, she deserves better than being kicked out without warning.”

“Yeah Jayce? She does? What’s this special lady’s name?”

The taller of the two paused for a moment, then just brushed past Ezreal to get to the door. As he pushed through the doorway to head towards the bedroom, Jayce said “Don’t worry. I’ll take care of it.”

Twenty minutes later, a Jayce who was now wearing an orange polo escorted a redheaded woman, wearing what were clearly an old T-shirt of Jayce’s and a pair of his jeans, to the door of the cabin. Ezreal was sitting in one of the chairs in front of the fireplace, tossing a small ball of energy up in the air and catching it with his gauntleted hand. He shot Jayce a stinkeye as the pair passed by, and all the way to the front door. This door was opened, from the other side, to reveal the Sheriff and her partner having arrived early. Vi was dressed very casually, with a gray long sleeve shirt and some black slacks. Caitlyn was in a nice floral pattern spring dress. Both were without their usual features of giant mechanical gauntlets and tall purple hat.  Everyone just froze for a moment upon the arrival of the pair, in awkward silence. Caitlyn shot a look filled with a mix of anger and confusion at Ezreal, who returned the look with tired eyes. Vi looked at the redhead, who turned away sheepishly. The first to break the silence was Jayce, who cleared his throat and said “Oh, hey! You two are early! Haha, wow, how weird. So… you ready for lunch?” Ezreal and Vi both flinched preemptively, in preparation for the tirade they were certain that Caitlyn was about to launch into. To the surprise of both, however, she simply turned heel and started walking away from the cabin. Upon seeing this, Ez jumped up from his seat, and one arcane shift later was walking beside the Sheriff. Vi, meanwhile, pushed her way inside and just stared Jayce down. The redhead, thoroughly embarrassed, took this opportunity to slide her way outside and to her car. Caitlyn and Ezreal walked their way, in silence, to the lake. She kept walking, following the trail around the circumference of the water. 

After a couple of minutes, Ezreal spoke up. “Alright, Cait. Let’s be honest. This isn’t the worst thing we’ve ever walked in on Jayce doing.” The sheriff responds with a small, sad laugh. “Ezreal… I appreciate the attempt. You know that it’s not about the woman.”

“Yeah, but.. You laughed! So I’m doing good so far.”

A soft smile rests on the sheriff’s face, and she just shakes her head. The smile quickly fades, though, and is replaced with a frown. “Every year, it’s something. He forgot a present last year, he had his speech and left early the year before… Why does he even show up if he doesn’t care?”

“Hey, hey, woah. He cares! Probably! I mean, you know, in his special Jayce way. Everything’s always about Jayce, you know? He’s trying. I think. It could have been two women. Or another guy. You remember three years ago when he brought that dude he was dating, Eric or whatever? And then they left to go ‘see a movie’?  Man, he was cool… I miss Eric.”

Caitlyn laughed, a genuine laugh, before stopping and turning to face Ezreal. There was something about his honest attitude that always broke through Caitlyn’s serious demeanor. The explorer stopped as well, and as he turned, had to look up at the much taller woman. The sheriff sighed once more, and rested a hand on Ezreal’s shoulder. “You know I appreciate you trying to do this every year, Ezreal. You and Vi are both very sweet for doing this. Jayce just does not seem to have his heart in the same place that you do.”

“Hey, hey! Alright, I get it. Let’s go back, make sure Vi hasn’t knocked too many of his teeth out, and I’ll talk to him. The rest of the day will be great, alright? I promise.”

“Hmm.. Fine. you go on ahead, Ez. I’ll be after in a few minutes.”

 

Back at the cabin, Ezreal opened the door to find Jayce sitting on the chaise lounge, with his head in his hands. Vi was sitting in one of the chairs, turned away from the inventor. He slowly approached the pink haired one of the two, and sat in the chair opposite from her. She just gave a small nod to acknowledge his presence. Ezreal waited a few seconds, then asked,

“So uhh.. You just find him like that, or?”

“I got loud. He’s an ass.”

“Well yeah. Yes. That’s… I’m not gonna say that you’re wrong, but. It’s important to Cait that all 3 of us get along for today, so. You mind if I talk to him?”

“Ugh. Fine.” Vi looked to the door, then back to Ezreal. “Where is Cupcake, anyway?”

“She wanted a little bit more time. You mind waiting outside for her? Keep her entertained until I have this all square?”

“How come you can’t be like this all the time? You’re usually so obnoxious, man. ‘Look at this new vase’ this, ‘you won’t believe this old dead guy I found’ that. I like this nice guy Ezreal.”

“Ha ha ha. Just get outside, knuckles.” Vi’s lips stretched into a smirk, and she ruffled Ezreal’s hair before making her way outside to wait for the sheriff. After watching her leave, Ezreal shifted from his seat by the fireplace to sitting beside Jayce on the lounge.

“So, Jayce. She lay it on thick?”

“I, uhh.. I’m gonna have to apologize, huh?”

“Yeah, but are you gonna /mean/ it?”

Jayce cocked an eyebrow, and shifted position to look at Ezreal more directly. “I take offense to that.”

“Yeah, yeah.” The blonde looked towards the door, and took a moment to think about which of Caitlyn’s words were important to share. “Listen, Jayce. You do something like this every time, man. There’s always something you have to apologize for when we do this. I think she’s getting tired of it.”

“That’s a little crazy. Every time? It can’t be every time. We always have a good time, don’t we? I’m the life of the party.”

“Yeah, yeah. All four of us always have a good time, Jayce. We have some drinks, we do the presents, it’s great...” Ezreal took a pause and ran his right hand through his hair, to prepare his wording. “But then you leave, man. You leave for your parade, or your date, or whatever you say you have to do, and stick me and Vi with clean up duty. Cait thinks you don’t care.” Jayce opened his mouth to speak, but closed it again before any words came out. Ezreal took the silence to continue. “I’m not saying you gotta do anything crazy, bud. We all know you’re not an emotional guy. None of us are super great at the whole emotions thing. But like, it’s one day of the year. You got hundreds of others to do whatever you want. She just needs this /one/, from the three of us.”

Jayce remained silent. He thought. He turned away. He just nodded. Still silent, Ezreal gave him a small pat on the shoulder, then together they went outside to get Caitlyn and Vi. 

The four did drinks. Jayce showed off a new recipe for some Demacian pork that he had learned while dealing with diplomats. They had all agreed to do just lunch, but.. Ezreal convinced everyone to stay a little later. Jokes were shared, stories were told. Vi and Jayce decided to arm wrestle after a few drinks.. Vi won like always. As the sun began to set, it was time for presents.Jayce had his waiting in the closet. A new scope for the sheriff’s rifle, that he had built himself. Vi had written a short instrumental piece that she performed on guitar. Ezreal’s small box was last. The wrapping tore away to reveal a small box, which opened to show a hextech photo frame. Preloaded with a slideshow, which started with the four of them in winterwear, in front of a green pine tree. Light fluffs of snow covered the needles. It kept scrolling to show them eating together surrounded by their families, building snowmen, enjoying various Snowdown activities. Ezreal was at least 6 inches shorter in the photos than he was in the cabin. It was the group’s first Snowdown together. Ezreal had visited their families, gathered photos from newspapers, and added a few of his own. It had been five years since then. Caitlyn barely managed to hold in her tears, made harder by the alcohol. They all exchanged hugs, and goodbyes. It was only a few months until the next Snowdown, but the four probably wouldn’t be spending any time together until then. Jayce asked Ezreal and Vi to leave before he did. He wanted to give that apology that Caitlyn was owed. So as the Explorer and the Enforcer left, Jayce asked Caitlyn to come outside of the cabin with him. They stood out back, looking over the lake as the last colors of the sunset began to fade over the horizon.

 

“Hey, Caitlyn, I wanted to say-”

“Jayce. That’s not necessary. We had a great day. It may have had a… rough start. But, Ezreal saved the day. He’s very glad every time we come together like this, you know.”

“Heh, yeah. He’s still like our little baby brother, huh? The kid gets so excited about everything… But he told me something, and as much as I hate admitting it, he was right. I owe you an apology.”

“You say you’re sorry every year, Jayce. Just drop it.”

“No, no, no. I’m not sorry about Jessica. ...Chelsea? I mean I am sorry about that, but not /just/ that. Uhh, look, my point is... listen. She’s not the point, here. The kiddo and Vi both let me know how it goes down after I bail from the party, and I just.. I didn’t know, I guess. I’m Jayce, you know? The Defender of Tomorrow. The big guy, the shmoozer. I show up, have some drinks, give a little speech about progress or whatever, and I go back to my work. I guess I’m just not used to people really caring about me sticking around after the ‘show.’”

“Well, moron. All three of us care about you, no matter how much of a selfish idiot you are.”

“Uhh… thanks? Thanks. That means a lot to me.”

Caitlyn smirks, and watches the last light of the sun as the moon takes over the light providing duties. “It’s getting late, Jayce. I should be getting home.”

“....Well, tomorrow’s a day off too, isn’t it?”

“Your point?”

“Do you really have anywhere to be?”

“...Jayce. What are you trying to say?”

“I have a bed in the cabin.”

The sheriff chuckles underneath her breath, and walks back inside without a word. Both her presents inside and her car outside remained where they were until the morning came.


End file.
